


Winds of Change

by Equivalentofabaguette, insipid



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, F/M, Friendship, Getting Together, Growing Up, Hetalia Countries Using Human Names, Liz and Rod are platonic, Liz is going though it as well, No cheating, Past Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Rated teen for language, Rod is an asshole, Romantic Gil n Liz, They all swear, and Gil is supportive, but it's not talked about that much so don't worry, but we have to help him thru it, the answer was inside us all along ig
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-03-05 18:39:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18834436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Equivalentofabaguette/pseuds/Equivalentofabaguette, https://archiveofourown.org/users/insipid/pseuds/insipid
Summary: Elizaveta is well into her college career, living with her roommate. This is all well and good, except her roommate is also her ex, and an asshole, and her only friend, all wrapped up into one spiteful and seemingly unshakable package. But when she meets someone new, who is kind, funny, and nothing like Roderich, she feels like she may be strong enough to part ways with that season of her life. But you can only get rid of so much before you start to realize that the people you surround yourself with are a bit more of a reflection of yourself than you'd like to believe.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is the first fanfiction I've written in probably four years, so go easy on me lmao  
> I owe everything to my gf, who helped me with this and is my rock, thank her for making sure this is readable at all.  
> Also the title is from Winds of Change by Vance Joy, shout out to Vance

When Elizaveta woke up, it was to the sound of the kettle screeching in the kitchen, and to the smell of coffee flowing through the thin walls of the apartment. The aroma always accompanied the sound closely, like smoke from a flame. It was part of the synchronous and unshakable morning routine which she both coveted from and despised about her roommate.

The smell was strong, bitter, the same way he had liked it since the days they had met, nearly a decade ago, and the way Liz had learned not to mind, although reluctantly.

 

_“You’re sure you don't want even a little sugar? Some cream?” she had said in disgust years back, wondering even then if she could somehow help him improve his situation. It was the first time he had come over to her house, and they were in elementary school. Her parents weren’t home- and she just wanted to be a good host._

_He had just looked at her quizzically, as if her question was a riddle, and not the simple offer it had been._

_“I enjoy the taste of coffee, Eliza, If I wanted it to taste like sugar or cream, I would pour myself a glass of just that,” he had laughed at her when she pulled a face at him, like he thought she was funny, but all she could think of was whatever else he must have been denying himself by that same logic. He had sounded like such an adult then. So proper and polished. That’s what had him earn her trust at first._

 

She cursed herself everyday for signing up for eight AM classes three times a week. The idea had been birthed out of hopes to force herself into some routine of productivity, but this had been her third semester of such efforts. She used to wake up early at the crack of dawn, have a long run before each class, but the habit faded as the weight of her workload increased.

In high school she had been a track star, running had been her escape, but now she had little time for that sort of thing, and she knew her strength and resistance had faded anyways. Some days, she wished she would wake up early and go out for a run, just one. But she never did. One of these days, she would have to get back to it, but now she needed coffee, and she had to get it before it was too late.

Roderich woke up when the sun rose, every day. He couldn’t help it, no matter how late he had gone to bed the night before, he always woke as soon as the light poured in through his east-facing bedroom window. (When they had moved into this place, Liz quickly picked the bedroom that didn’t have this kind little feature.)

She knew he liked to act all self-righteous about being such an early riser, like it was a product of his structured and organized lifestyle and not one of his fitful sleeping habits, but she naturally saw right through it. She always saw right through everything with him, and it had long-since surpassed its status as being a trait she was glad for. Nowadays it was more akin to a curse.

He would always shower early and lay around in their cramped apartment, waiting for Liz to drag herself out of her respective cave so that he could talk to her about his music, or that he could sit and listen while she talked about getting a job, or getting a cat, or something of that nature.

She was always the one doing the most of the talking, and he liked to sit, to observe her. Mostly, she was thankful that he usually was quieter in the mornings- sometimes, it was just too early to hear him speak in that awfully tight, refined way he had.

He just had the most inexplicable talent for starting fights between the two of them, which was remarkable because Liz never had fights with anyone, except him. Save for her parents, but those were extremely different circumstances. The point is, she wasn’t a fighter, but somehow he had a way of turning any mood bitter, always knew how to say just the wrong thing. It had been especially worse lately- there had been tension in the air at their house. Liz was trying her best to simply ignore it, but it was starting to be quite stifling.

 

Rod was truly, utterly insufferable, but he usually had coffee made before she was up. Sometimes early in the morning, music would float into her room through the thin walls from where he would be practicing his violin, his piano, or whatever he fancied at the moment. Those were the times she thought he wasn’t so bad, maybe she could he a bit thankful for him, until she rolled herself out of bed and into the kitchen, and had to hear him speak.

She had barely even walked into their awful linoleum-floored kitchen area, partitioned from the stained carpet of the rest of their apartment by a weathered metal divider, before she had been practically harassed in the progress of her trudge to the french press.

He was agitated this morning, she could tell from the tightness of his shoulders, and the pinched look of his face. He looked tired, almost pitiful, and for a split second Liz wondered if she could bypass the snark which she could infer she was about to receive by simply asking if he was alright.

She decided to obstain, she knew she would likely find out soon enough.

“You look like you slept well,” chirped Roderich ironically from where he was perched on a barstool, legs crossed over each other twice in what looked to Liz like an impossible knot. His hair was dark, combed neatly, and despite the hour he was fully dressed.

Liz stared at him. She was barefoot, wearing her robe and the remnants of yesterday's mascara.

He was sipping his mug of coffee delicately, watching her over the brim of the mug like she was an animal at the zoo. His comment was sarcastic, obviously, but she didn’t want to fall into the trap yet.

She just wanted coffee, and then maybe she could try and refute him, although it was difficult to do so when he wasn’t even working towards a point with his wheedling. He was just being annoying for annoyance sake. It shouldn’t have worked as well as it did, seeing as he was an imbecile.

“I didn’t,” said Liz as she pulled a mug down on the counter, floral, something rich and classy Roderich had brought with him from his parents’ house. It was likely technically china. She quickly poured herself a mug of coffee, moving to search in their practically barren fridge for the half-and-half cream she clearly remembered purchasing at the beginning of the week. “Thank you for saying something, though.”

Shit. The cream was suspiciously gone. She must have used the last of it. She gave him a dirty look regardless as she took her mug of black tar and sat a few chairs away from him at their bar. He was absolutely useless.

“No, dear, truly… you look like shit. Are you coming down with something...?” He looked as if he could be truly inquiring, if not for the glint in his eye that she knew well, which told her he was, in all actuality, informing her of such.

She would have loved to have had smacked him in that moment, if she didn't know from experience that he bruised like a peach, and also that if she so much as left a scuff on his boot she would never hear the end of it.

This wasn't exactly uncharted territory with Rod. Completely unsolicited insults were not so far removed from his usual modus operandi, but Liz was still surprised. What was it? Seven AM? And she had already apparently done something to piss him off.

Either that or he was upset by something else, but who else does he even talk to? And so early? Clearly, he was still pissed from something she had done unwittingly. Yet, put a gun to her head and force her to ascertain what, she had no idea.

She was not like Roderich when it came to bickering: she had a fraction of his tact. He was graceful in a match of tongues, leaping and doing pirouettes of logic and words that she had never learned.

It was skill honed from a childhood spent bickering and fighting back, she knew, and it hearkened back to the natures of his parents, how they picked and chipped away at each other in that same, nearly carnivorous way. But Liz had never fought back as a child, always just sat there and taken it.

All the bickering nowadays was like learning a second language; or fourth, in Liz’ case.

“Why would you care if I was coming down with something? Wouldn’t that just be one more avenue in your life where you wouldn’t be getting absolutely all the attention? Oh no! If Liza is sick, who’s going to notice me? Who else can I put down to feel better about myself all the time? Oh no- I don’t know anyone else!” She did her best impression of him: overly-nasally, layering on the thick Germanic accent she knew they both had, but which she swore was worlds more pronounced on him.

Fortunately, that shut him up, but unfortunately he had lost the vague smug expression he wore a moment ago. Now he was frowning at her, chin raised slightly. If he hadn’t been fully pissy before, he definitely was now.

Liz knew he didn’t like it when she joked about how they didn’t have anyone else besides each other. Not that it didn't bother her as well, but for him, it was shameful. She was numbed to it by this point, she didn't need anyone else; she barely even needed him.  

It had been this way almost all their lives: they had been childhood friends ( _friends_ was one way to describe it, but they had also been enemies in equal lengths), even through high school they had been close. Best friends, studying together, practically living together when Liz needed a place to stay that wasn’t her house, and when he got kicked out of his for letting his GPA slip below 4.0.

For a time, they even dated, but that ended in disaster and betrayal, and Liz baffled herself wondering why either of them hadn’t realized he was gay sooner. It was a very long story, born out of convenience and childlike naivety, but it didn’t stop a very young Liz from getting her heart broken.

It was all water under the bridge, they both knew, and that wasn’t what this was about. That didn’t pertain to anything about their relationship now.

Through everything, the two remained side-by-side, yet Liz had no idea why or how. By all accounts it made no sense, but absolutely no one knew her like Rod, and God forbid she have anyone else she felt comfortable enough around to share a bathroom with. Comfort may be relative, but at least Roderich was clean (if not neat), and had no desire to touch her things.

He was wounded, likely not only by her words, she could tell, but she wasn’t ready to let it go. Sometimes, he needed to be put in his place, otherwise he got too cocky, too self-righteous.

“It’s not like you know anyone else either, Elizaveta. If you hate me so much, move back home for all I care. I _do_ have someone else, and I have somewhere else to go, unlike you! Don’t try and make yourself out as the one who is so longsuffering as to put up with me all the time- you’re just as bad!” Roderich was getting heated, she could tell, and in the back of her mind she wondered what the hell was wrong.

Roderich’s words hit her like a slap in the face for a few reasons. There was a lot to unpack so suddenly, and she didn’t know how to respond.

She couldn't go back to her parents and he knew it, neither of them could, even if they wanted to, which by God, they did not. Her childhood had been hell with them, and now that she was an adult, she never would have to go back.

Rod had had it just as bad as her- his parents had been so strict, so distant and unforgiving, and because she knew them it gave Liz room in her heart to forgive Rod at times for being an emotionless asshole. She got that way too sometimes, she knew.

But she also knew almost everything about him, and when she wracked her brain trying to figure out who else would take him in, all that came up were blanks.

“Roderich, really- what the hell are you-” she was caught off guard mid-speech, when she heard something that made her blood run ice cold, “Oh, fuck me!”

Her alarm, muffled by walls separating her from her bedroom, small and forgotten, was trying to tell her something urgent from her bedside table. Fuck, how long had that been going off?

She turned away from him, because she knew they would continue this argument later anyways, and ran back to her room as she cursed herself for her irresponsibility. She checked her phone, and it was nearly 7:45, which meant she should have been read for class five minutes ago, and she hadn’t even brushed her teeth yet. Usually she was woken up by Rod around six thirty, had she even checked the time that morning?

She ignored him calling after her, because she didn’t care, and tried to spend the least amount of time as humanly possible assembling herself for the day. By the time she was in her car and stepping on the gas, she had already come to terms with the fact that she looked an absolute mess.

Her hair was in a dirty bun at the top of her head, she was wearing a sweatshirt that she knew for sure had a hole in the sleeve, and her leggings had a mysterious chalky stain on them. Her backpack, green, decorated with pins, and ancient was slung roughly into the seat behind her. She was disgraceful, and she knew it was giving prim and proper Roderich some kind of victory to see herself leaving the house in such a state, but she had to push the concern and annoyance away. This wasn’t a victory for him if he just sat at the house for hours while she was gone, marinating in his own sour mood.

Her education was more important than whatever fleeting argument they had been having, and she was close to failing this particular class purely on account of attendance. She had been late to it thrice before, and she just hoped that her professor wouldn’t lock the door once class commenced this time. She had horror stories of him doing such, the nasty old man, and she couldn’t afford this absence knock to her grade.

When she was pulling up to the campus, the clock on her car’s dashboard told her it was 7:58, meaning if she ran, she would have time to get there _exactly_ at eight.

So ran she did. Hearing her car door slam behind her, clicking the lock button on her keys, she took off, into the grand intellectual building, hearing the slap of her ancient, ragged tennis shoes on the polished ground of the old, fancy university.

Out of pure, dumb luck, she slipped into the lecture hall in the nick of time, and she saw her professor, an aging, hay-headed man in an uncomfortable-looking wool sweater vest and an English name she could never keep straight, making his way toward that very door, obviously to make sure it was locked before class began. She had made it.

“Decided to dance on thin ice this morning I see, young lady,” said the man, the cockney underneath his practiced posh accent slipping through unusually, obviously due to annoyance. Fortunately, he did nothing to perturb her from entering.

“Ah, I’m so sorry!” she said as she scampered to the closest available seat. She did not get a response from her professor, which was definitely for the best. He scared the living daylights out of her.

It was times like this she felt like an outsider in the states. She was foreign, obviously, born in Hungary. Not that a lot of people she encountered here even knew where Hungary was, and not that she truly encountered that many people to begin with.

She just tried to keep a low profile, and hated tardiness- but these eight AM classes, man- you’d think she’d be used to them by now.

As soon as she settled in her seat, she felt like something was wrong. She looked around; to her left, toward the center of the room, was the professor’s podium, which he was standing at currently, seemingly tapping around on his laptop, trying to get the lesson’s powerpoint to work.

To her right, just one empty seat away, was sitting a young man about her age.

He was tapping away at his own laptop, hunching over it slightly, allowing for his shock of white hair to fall slightly into his eyes. He was white as a sheet, skin tinged pink, and he wore a thick pair of glasses. Albino, her brain supplied for her.

She tried not to stare, but he was- well, he was pretty. Scribbling something down on a sticky note, and then sticking it swiftly to the margin of his textbook, she wondered what he could possibly be takings notes on, the lesson had yet to begin.

As she was zoning out, watching the boy write a note, admire it, stick it to a page of his textbook, likely to preserve the condition so as to retain some value for resale later, wash, rinse, repeat, a simple thought occurred to her. Something wasn’t right.

Suddenly, for what felt like the tenth time in the past hour, she was hit by another realization. She had forgotten her bag in her car.

Her bag, with her laptop, her books, her notebooks, everything- she had left it in the backseat of her car in her hurry to get into class on time.

She made a noise in the back of her throat, a groan of defeat. At the same time, the professor, having apparently bravely figured out the elusive ways of Google Slides, cleared his throat, and began his lecture.

Apparently alerted by the noise, the boy to her left looked over at her, concerned or perplexed, she couldn’t tell. Silent, the two just looked at each other, not wanting to be caught interrupting the lecture and get sent out. His eyes were watery beneath his glasses, watery and deep red. It was slightly haunting. Eliza felt cursed enough already, she needed to stop staring, but she couldn’t.

He looked at her, expressionless for a moment, before quirking a smile at her that was a little toothy, and leaning down toward his papers again, resumed his scribbling.

She was slightly relieved, because looking at him was a little stressful, and was glad the interaction was over. She pulled out her phone from her back pocket- she will have to just take notes there.

She was surprised when, out of the corner of her eye, she sees him slide something over to her. It was a sticky note, bright pink, on it scrawled a note in frankly troubling handwriting.

_u forgot ur stuff ??_

She knew she probably looked at him for a second like he was an alien from outer space, but she swallowed and nodded. She didn’t have a pen to write anything back with. He seemed to understand that quickly enough though, and slid his pen over to her in a muffled laugh.

God, she hoped this guy wasn’t an asshole.

_Yes, I was running pretty late this morning._

She felt pretty self-conscious suddenly, like she usually did composing emails or texts to native English speakers. She had lived here a couple years already, and wasn’t half bad speaking, but she hoped her prose wasn’t as lacking as she feared.

Checking over the message to make sure it was correct, she passed it back, sticking it to the table in front of him. He quickly wrote back.

_here look on my textbook. do u want some paper or something?_

The next thing she knew, he had swiftly scooted over, into the seat that had previously been empty beside her. He slid his textbook between them, a gesture which made her suddenly able to see both the pages of his textbook and the notes on it.

She was suddenly overwhelmed with thankfulness for this random stranger. She nodded at him, and he easily handed her a pen and a couple pieces of paper, ripped from his journal.

When she studied the open page of his textbook, she noticed the margins were lined with a few sticky-note notations, all of which were strange to her eyes for a moment, until she was able to fully process them. They were all in perfect German. Her heart skipped a beat.

Her German was rusty, she had learned it well enough to speak while she was still living in Hungary, but she could recognize what they said. All just chapter notes, accompanied by a fool doodles and odd scribbles. She threw him a sidelong glance, which he caught, and returned with a grin.

She wasn’t sure what he thought was so funny, but she felt suddenly amused, too. She just hoped she was dealing with a nice German boy, and not a weird American Nazi. Only time could tell, but she had a good feeling about the former.

On the sticky note they had just used to communicate, which she had grabbed from where he had stuck it to the margin of his notebook, she scribbled him one last message.

_Danke._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elizaveta ponders the meaning of this new acquaintance in her life, yet still has to deal with an old one. Poor soul.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this has taken a while, ya girl has been tryna get her drivers' license, go on dates, work, etc
> 
> I been listening to The Mountain Goats' album Tallahassee throughout this whole writing process so far... lets hope it doesn't show.  
> Clink clink lads!

By the time the lecture had ended, Elizaveta surveyed her neat, organized notes, and the boy to her right lingered in place just long enough to presume she was done borrowing everything she needed before he quickly began to pack up his things. His movements were haphazard, but she couldn’t quite gauge whether he was nervous, in a hurry, or just careless. He seemed orderly enough, judging by what she had seen of his notes and his appearance, so Liz was leaning toward one of the former. She wasn't quite sure if the slight nervous energy between them was coming from him or herself. Knowing herself, she leant toward the latter. 

He stood, catching her eyes and reaching out to shake her hand as people buzzed and milled about around them. The crowd had already nearly cleared away, many wanting to get out of the lecture hall as quickly as possible. She couldn’t bring herself to blame them. She wouldn’t usually be so far behind if it wasn’t for the young man holding her in place with potent mix of social obligation, strong handshake, and a piercing gaze.

_ And a little bit of good looks _ , Liz thought to herself. But she wasted no time in that line of thinking. 

He was laughing at her again, his bemusement from earlier at her situation having tickled him endlessly for some unknowable reason. What was this guy’s problem, anyways? Hadn’t he ever accidentally forgotten anything before? Usually she would consider this kind of reaction to her honest mistake as rude, but somehow it didn’t rub her the wrong way. He was chuckling like they were friends.   
“Try to be more careful next time, yeah? You might not run into many more good Samaritans like me next time.” His words were graced with a smirk and a Germanic accent of some kind, although it seemed to her to be a bit faded. 

Liz wasn’t as surprised by it as she had been before. She had expected it this time, and it didn’t cause her to stumble, although it was the first time she had heard him speak.

Judging from the softened edges of the accent, he presumably had lived in the US for a very long time, although he seemed about her age, if not exactly so. She wondered for a moment- but knew she shouldn’t ask. She didn’t forget how it made her uncomfortable when people inquired the same sorts of personal information about herself. 

She frowned, opening her mouth to respond to his strange, teasing comment, but he beat her to it. 

“What’s your name?” He inquired. He was looking at her inquisitively. 

She hesitated about giving this perfect stranger her name, and frowned slightly at the interruption. His eyebrows jumped up at her completely unneeded hesitation. She knew she likely looked suspicious, but she hadn’t exactly expected to meet someone new today, and she was beginning to remember she was dressed like a homeless woman.

“Elizaveta,” she said finally. It was the first time she had spoken aloud to him, and she didn’t miss that his eyebrows, practically translucent, jumped up again this time, likely due to her foreign name or accent. She was well aware it was much more pronounced than his own, although likely not recognizable enough for him.

Now she finally got the luxury of being the mystery, and though she had only known this boy for an hour, but the feeling was rewarding. He looked at her with new curiosity, and he opened his mouth to speak yet again, before he became the one that was interrupted before he could start. 

But this time the interruption didn’t come from Liz herself, but from a tall figure roughly tackling him from behind. The young man stood his ground and hoisted the weight of both himself and his assailant, turning his back to Liz in a flash to in order to see who it was. 

“Gil! Are you coming or what? We’re about to be late- flirt later!”

The boy (Gil, assumedly), cackled and pushed the other young man who had just attacked him roughly away. This guy was dark, grinning, and spoke with a Mediterranean accent Liz couldn’t truly trust herself to try to place accurately.

Liz wondered if there was an international students group she had been excluded from this whole time, in favor of being permanently glued to the hip of the world’s most annoying Classical Composition major. 

In hindsight, maybe they all had merely been avoiding him, and she had just been collateral damage. Typical. 

“Toni, god damn if you’re not rude as hell. Go away- the adults are talking right now. I’ll be heading out in a second, I still have to gather my shit.” With another rough push, the young man, whom Liz quickly assigned Toni, was ushered away, laughing. This was a raucous pair. 

Gil turned back to her and smiled again, but this time it was much more apologetic, scrambling to save the demure air of the moment before. 

It was almost funny, he seemed humbled by the overbearing interruption of his friend. It was a good look on him. 

“Ah, I’m really sorry about that, Elizaveta,” He pronounced her name carefully but properly, and she appreciated it. “It was very nice meeting you- I’ve got to go. My- well, one of my best friend’s boyfriend’s little sister is graduating today,” Gil was only half way into his explanation and Liz could somehow no longer follow, “-and I got roped into it because I have a car, unlike any of those deadbeats, so,” there was that laugh again, resigned, “Have a great rest of your day, I hope you’ve got better plans than I do. See you… Wednesday? I’ll be sitting- right here!” He gestured to the chair he had just been occupying and winked. She nodded at him politely. 

She decided not to ask questions about the seemingly complicated mess of connections he just listed, although privately she wondered.

“See you,” she echoed, “Next time, I hopefully won’t be in such a hurry, I’ll try and remember my things. Ah- thank you again.”

He nodded, grabbing his mostly packed-up bag and a couple of odd items still on the table and beginning to make his way down the isles of chairs. Toni was waiting by the door, checking his phone, and he said something she couldn’t quite make out when he saw his friend in earshot.  

She heard Gil’s tell-tale laugh as he turned a final time to wave to her before leaving, his friend close behind. 

When he left, she felt herself sigh in relief. She wasn’t sure why his presence had made her tense, but it had. Perhaps it was the fact that it had been a while since she had made a new friend, although  _ friend _ was a bit of a strong word to describe the connection she had just made. 

He had done her a favor, and they now knew each other's’ names, and thus they were at least acquaintances. But the comment he had made- the one about seeing her soon, sounded like an invitation. 

Well, truly, it sounded like a flirtation, but Liz wasn’t very prepared at the moment to unpack that. That’s even what Gil’s friend had called it, _ flirting _ , yet that made her slightly nervous. Not that it was necessarily unwelcome, but she had only ever had one romantic partner, and that had  been a disaster of catastrophic proportions. She wasn’t sure if she knew how to be romantic at all. 

Not that he had offered anything more than possibly seeing her again, thus she shouldn’t get herself worked up about the completely, utterly unrelated issue such as the complexities of the dating world. 

_ There is nothing to be anxious about _ , she had to tell herself.

As she got into her car, she cast a glance behind her to the traitorous olive green Jansport, sitting innocently on its side, exactly where she had tossed it in her hurry hours before. She cursed it, and turned around to start the car and head back to home.

It was her own fault she was in this mess, she knew, although it also could be argued that Rod shared partial blame. And damn if that wasn’t the part she was going to fixate on. 

If he hadn’t woken up in such a sour, antagonistic mood this morning, maybe they wouldn’t have gotten involved in such a fight, and Liz possibly would have noticed the time and not been in such a rush that she forgot her bag in the car. 

That being said, he still had no idea what it had been that had had Rod in such a moody state that morning. It felt like he had truly just wanted to get a reaction out of her, and as always, he had gotten what he wanted.

The man had been acting rather strange lately, but she had chalked it up to overexertion and stress, and assured herself that he would have himself straightened out soon, as he always eventually did. If she didn’t know any better, when she noticed he was acting strangely, she would encourage him to take a break, perhaps retire early to bed. But the poor fool’s pride was so fragile, she had to keep her rare concern for him restricted to very small, undetectable acts. She could make him a cup of tea, or fold his laundry for him, or make sure to be out of the house when he thought he could use the time alone. Anything more obvious than that was a no-go, and forget her ever plainly asking if he was alright, the myriad of unspoken rules between them regarding what they should and shouldn’t say to each other being complex enough to write a novel about in themselves.

When she thought he needed help, she just had to repeat the cycle of pretending not to notice, performing very small, seemingly-accidental nice things for him, and hope he was doing better.

She didn’t know what it was about him that made him to averse to accepting aid or concern, but it was tiring. Let’s just say, before Liz met Rod, she had considered herself one who  _ liked _ caring for others. Now, she had no idea why she had been saddled with the one person who rejects most kindnesses outright, and the notion exhausted her. 

She was lost in thought the whole drive back to their apartment. 

She knew it was almost certain Roderich would not be home. He didn’t loiter around there much- he was always busy, taking six classes that semester. Elizaveta admittedly did consider herself smart, but she could hardly make herself imagine taking more than four- the workload she had already even felt awfully overbearing at times.

Rod had always been that way, though. Throughout the entire time she had known him, which was well over a decade at this point, he had performed at an unimaginably high standard.

His parents had always expected so much of him, absolutely nothing but his very best had been accepted by them. Liz was very well aware that his childhood had not been very happy, having witnessed much of the second half of it herself. 

But there was always a minuscule part of her that was only a little bit jealous of him. His parents may have been awfully hard on him, but at least he had always had everything he needed. Rod resented lot of things about his upbringing, but Liz didn’t quite understand his aversion to their excess. 

Anything Liz wanted to accomplish, her whole childhood, she had to make happen on her own. Her parents, unlike Roderich's, invested nothing in her, and had never cared if she made anything of herself. 

Roderich found his current success in music because he had been put into the best piano and music theory lessons money could buy every evening since he was five years old. Liz had succeeded through track in high school because she had started walking alone wherever she needed to go when she was eight. 

If he wanted to, he could go back to his parents, ask for money, rent his own apartment. But he was rooming with Liz either out of a favor to her, or out of a desire to experience poverty he had only heard about growing up, she couldn’t tell. Whatever Liz was doing to make him still want to keep slumming it with her, she wasn’t sure. As much as she could tell, it was the same reasoning as her own: nostalgic attachment and begrudging trust that was too hard-earned to try to build with someone new.

Why couldn’t they have just grown apart slowly over time and eventually resolve to stalk each others’ Facebooks, like normal childhood friends and ex lovers do?

 

Usually, when Liz got home from her morning classes, she would stay home and relax for while, try and get some studying done, seeing as that was typically when Roderich wasn’t around. It was just easier that way- when he was home, he was either talking to her or practicing, and there was hardly a moment of peace. 

Currently, she was exhausted, the residual tiredness from the morning resuming its place where it had previously been overtaken by the adrenaline of her the hurry and of the strange encounter at the lecture. 

She hopped up the stairs and into the safe, cool air of the currently uninhabited apartment, wanting nothing more than to take a small nap- thirty minutes, maybe. 

She entered, as she normally did, enjoying the quiet and the stillness of it all. She toed her shoes off at the door, hanging her keys on their designated spot on the key rack. She left her backpack on the cabinet to her right, walking closer into the apartment, about to pull her phone from her pocket in order to check her notifications, when something bright red, laying on their dining table, caught her eye.

She frowned and walked over to it. Upon further inspection, it was a hoodie. Plain red, but with the name of some pre-medical program from a nearby college Liz recognized. 

She blanked. This wasn’t hers, and certainly it wasn’t Rod’s- he didn’t wear hoodies, firstly, and secondly, he had no affiliations with the college represented on said hoodie or any interest in the medical field at all. She couldn’t make herself to recall whether it had been sitting there that morning or not. Somehow, she doubted it.

Either some pre-med student of their rival school had broken the fuck into their apartment, or Roderich himself had brought someone in. Both options confused her, but one of them seemed a lot more likely.

She was just holding the hoodie, studying it, when she heard a key enter and turn in the front door, which she had locked behind her. Her heart dropped, and she felt immediately and inexplicably guilty. 

When the front door swung open, it revealed Rod behind it, which somehow surprised her. Who else would it have been? 

His satchel and the strap of his violin case were both slung over his shoulder. He was looking at her like he saw a ghost, which didn’t make any sense, until she watched him zero in on the crimson item in her hands. His face soured noticeably. Obviously, he recognized it. Wasn’t he supposed to be at a class at the moment?

“That’s not yours,” he stated carefully, stepping toward her only enough to close the front door behind himself. “Give it to me.”

She frowned at him. Something here was not right, and as much as she didn’t want to assert herself into his business when she was starting to get the clear picture he didn’t want her there, she couldn’t help herself from becoming defensive at his secretive behavior. Plus, she had thought that he wouldn’t have brought people into their apartment without letting her know first, and at the moment that’s exactly what it appeared had happened. 

“Well, it’s definitely not yours,” she responded, equally as measured. “What’s this from?”

“That’s  _ hardly _ any of your business, and it  _ is _ mine.” He stepped forward quickly, ripping it from her hands. “And next time, before you go perusing through my things, maybe consider that it’s not any of your concern, hm? I’m not your child, or your brother, and I’m  _ definitely _ not your boyfriend, so you have absolutely no reason to be watching over me. Alright?” 

He held the hoodie in his arms, straightening out where it had been rumpled in the struggle, folding it neatly. She watched him, studying as he held it like it were something breakable, something more than it was. The silence after his outburst was deafening, but Liz had absolutely no idea how to respond to that.

“Alright, Rod, jeez,” she felt awful suddenly, but her guilt was hardly overwhelmed by her offense at the inflammatory nature of his, clearly emotional, response. She tried not to let it show, she wanted him to see that she didn’t want to be his enemy, “What the hell has been going on with you lately? You’ve been acting like we’re back in high school or something, and I’ve just been-” 

“Eliza, if you could just fuck off,” he practically growled at her, and her eyebrows jumped. “I really don’t want to hear it. I don’t need you on my back right now.”

Liz just looked at him, trying to understand, but she couldn’t. She didn’t say anything. She was beginning to suspect that there was nothing she could say to help this situation.

He was worked up, staring right back at her, daring her to say anything else. She just shook her head, walking past him to the doorway where she left her bag and her keys only minutes before, and began sliding her shoes back on.

“Alright,” she said, slipping one arm of her bag over her shoulder, “See you later, then. I’m going out,” she grabbed her keys, turning back to him just one time, “Get some rest, okay?”

That last comment was only slightly meant to tick him off, but it was also born out of concern. She didn’t look over her shoulder to gauge his reaction, just closed the door behind her and practically ran down the stairs. The apartment, which had moments before been a calm safe haven where she had been planning on resting, had turned into a stifling arena in what felt like the blink of an eye. 

She just got in her car, unsure of what to do next. She was still exhausted, and contemplated sleeping there, if not for how creeped-out that made her feel. It brought back memories of times she rather not remember of her teens, and she didn’t need to sleep that desperately anyways. She turned the key in the ignition, and made up in her mind to head to a cafe nearby.

It was one she frequented, where she could buy a good cup of coffee and work on work or homework in relative peace, and that, above all else, was what she desired at the moment. Peace. 

She walked in, and the aroma of coffee invaded her senses, and she felted calmed slightly. She hated fighting, but spats with Rod had been happening so often lately, she felt like an old married couple. 

_ I’m definitely not your boyfriend, _ he had practically spat at her. 

Of course he had to throw that in her face. Of course she knew he wasn’t, and neither did she want him to be. She was much, much far past that stage in her life. 

Nonetheless, he was her best friend, and her roommate, and she cared about him. Well, at the moment she was annoyed with him, and she had been for a couple weeks, but regardless, she cared. It… concerned her that he was suddenly so secretive. Not that Liz required or desired to know absolutely everything about his inner thoughts and desires, or even about his day-to-day life, but she wondered what it was that made him suddenly start lurking around.

And, judging from the mystery hoodie, there was someone else. This did not bother Liz, but it did pique her curiosity, and she wondered how on earth he had managed both to meet someone, but also entice them enough to somehow agree to visiting their apartment. She was almost proud of him, except the question begged to be asked: how did Roderich Edelstein, the most off-putting person she knew, manage to see someone before Liz? How long had this been going on?

 

She was utterly lost in thought when someone plopped down heavily in the chair opposite her at the small table where she had set up her laptop. 

She jumped practically a foot in the air and almost spilled her coffee when she looked up, coming face to face with the very boy she had met earlier. Gil, with an empty coffee cup in hand. Everything in her brain came to a screeching halt when she looked at him, and they just sat there, face-to-face. 

“Elizaveta,” he stated, and he was grinning at her. He wasn’t wearing the same thick glasses she had seen him in earlier, and seeing him without them now allowed her to get a closer look at his face. 

His features were sharp, almost intimidating, if it wasn’t his for his eyes shining at her. They were deep red, but softened by his giddy expression. Looking at him, she noticed his face was lightly dotted with freckles that were nearly impossible to make out. 

Before she could think, she spoke, “I thought you had a graduation to go to. Why are you here?”

Liz was beginning to suspect that Rod, of all people, was right: she did have a problem with being nosy. But Gil, much unlike Roderich, did not seem fazed. In fact, he laughed when she seemed to remember this detail from earlier, albeit sheepishly.

“Oh, you see… I got out of that. I was the designated driver because I have a car, but, as fate would have it, I was not fit to drive.”

She squinted at him, unsure of what he even meant, “Did you seriously get drunk just so you wouldn’t have to drive your friends to a graduation?”

In response to that, he laughed again, shaking his head at her, “No, No! Nothing like that, I don’t, well- I don’t drink. It’s actually my eyes,” he made a vague gesture to his face, as if Liz might be unfamiliar with the concept of eyes. “I’ve got bad eye problems. I’m unfit to drive without my glasses or contacts, but also not with, like, more than two other people in the car, so… it didn’t really work out.”

Liz suddenly felt extremely guilty again for what felt like the thousandth time that day. She had heard something somewhere about albino people having bad eye problems, among other complications. She should have put the dots together, but Gil, to his credit, did not seem phased. 

“I’m sorry,” she said anyways.

“Well, good, cause it’s all your fault,” he said, joking, and Liz felt herself crack a smile. “My name’s Gilbert, by the way. Gilbert Beilschmidt.” She nodded at him, and reluctantly closed her laptop. She likely would not be getting much work done for the foreseeable future. 

“You can call me Liz,” she offered in response, and he nodded. “Your…  pronunciation of my name is very good. That’s not especially common around here, from what I’ve seen. If I may ask… where are you from?”

“I’m from East Germany, but I moved here when I was twelve.” She nodded again, and he didn’t seem like he was going to provide any more information than that. It was enough, though. She had been to East Germany, and suddenly she was imagining him there, among the people and the mountains. He fit right in. 

She chuckled, “I wish I’d lived in the US for that long. I only moved here for college, and It… It gets pretty difficult to acclimate at times. I’m still getting used to it.”

He laughed as well, the expression making it all the way to his eyes, which Liz realized were shaking. She tried not to give any indication that she noticed.

“Well, just so you know, we here in The States usually like to bring all our things to class with us. It’s actually common courtesy to-”

“Oh okay, fuck off,” she laughed, taking another sip of her coffee. It was nearly gone.

“And where are you from?”

“I’m from Hungary,” she paused, gauging his reaction. Her home country wasn’t as rich or as well- known as fancy Germany, but he nodded faithfully. “Have you ever been?”

He shook his head, which Liz expected. “No, but I’d like to go.”

“What, tired of America?” she raised her eyebrows at him, and he laughed, surprised.

“Well, sometimes it’s tiring, but it’s home. Not so bad for plain white dudes like me, and I’m extra white, so I’m like a celebrity here.”

Liz, for her part, had absolutely no idea how to respond to that. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to laugh or not, but apparently her reaction caused Gil to crack up, which caused her to do the same. 

“I may not know you very well, but I’d say you’re hardly a celebrity.” His lip jutted out in a pout, but his eyes sparkled with humor.

“How could you say that! You’ve never heard of me?”

She was laughing at him, her brows furrowed, “No, of course not! What do you mean?”

“What do you mean what do I mean? I mean this is unacceptable-” he quickly snatched a piece of paper from her open folder and tore off the bottom edge like an elementary school boy who had a juicy secret he simply could not go another moment before sharing. 

He leant down close to it on the table and brandished a pen, which also somehow appeared to be hers. Quickly, he began scribbling down numbers, and it took Liz a few seconds to realize it must be a phone number.  _ His _ phone number. Her heart plummeted to her feet.

It was only a mere few seconds before the scrap of paper and the pen both were returned to her, and there was a phone number written in messy, black ink with ‘- Gil’ written below.

Her stomach was currently filled with butterflies. She, once again, remembered had no idea how to deal with this sort of situation. It was just as she had feared: she was being romanced. “Oh- thank you.”

“You’re absolutely welcome,” he affirmed without wavering, and she wondered how many times he had done this before. He was good at it. “Call any time.” 

He stood suddenly. “Alright, well, I must be going,” he leant down and retrieved his empty coffee cup from the table. He tossed it into a waste basket nearby, and turned to her with a sense of finality. “I wouldn’t mind running into you again sometime. Soon.” 

And with that, Gilbert waved and left, disappearing in almost the same hurry as he had appeared. He left Liz feeling a little shocked, a bit apprehensive, but also a small, very tentative part excited. 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roderich and Elizaveta go to a party together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this has been so long lads I’m only able top work on this when my chakras are aligned

The next evening, it was about 6:00 PM before Eliza began wondering why Roderich was making such a commotion in the bathroom. It was a Friday afternoon, a day which they both had free. She was surprised that from the next room, it sounded as though her roommate was getting ready to go somewhere, and it had been, she realized, for the past half-hour.  
Roderich was just as much as a shut-in as they come, as was she, and this was not characteristic of him at all. Usually, he would go out on a Monday night, maybe if at all, when crowds would be thinner, everyone was going home and preparing themselves for the week. She wracked her memory, urging herself to remember if perhaps he had a performance tonight or something, but her brain yielded nothing. It was possible he could have one that he possibly didn’t tell her about, but that usually wasn’t the case; he always let her know when one was coming up, and she always made an effort to attend. When they were younger, she would be the only one from his personal life who showed up to support him. Not that there weren’t other people there: music lovers, people who heard about the event in the paper, sometimes the friends and family of those he performed with, if it was an ensemble. But to her memory, none of his family members ever came, with the exception of his parents every year or so, if they deemed the performance itself as important enough. Liz herself always used to make a big deal about it. She would bring him flowers, she would buy him some stuffed animal, maybe, and it was as much of a joke as it was her truly trying to remind him she cared. Nowadays, she still was usually the only one to attend his performances, but she usually didn’t bring the gifts along; he eventually accumulated a startling collection of cheap stuffed animals for someone in his demographic, and after they moved in together, Liz got tired of just watching the flowers she gave him rot. It always served to make her sad.

Elizaveta knew just how much it bothered poor Roderich when she tended to insert her nose in his business (which was often), but as she heard the shower shut off in their shared bathroom, then the sound of the hair drier a few minutes later, she got up and began to make her way into the living room. Growing up in the kind of household she did, early on she learned a lot of tactics of survival, some unfortunately more manipulative than others.  
Quickly, she turned on the stovetop and set the kettle down to start heating up. Loitering for a minute or two, she waited for the sound of the hair drier to stop, before walking over and strategically knocking on the bathroom door.  
“Someone’s in here.” Roderich sarcastically sounded off after a second. Liz would have rolled her eyes if he could see her, but she didn’t, since she didn’t have to pretend for an audience comprised only of herself.  
“I’m making tea, do you want any?” Usually Liz didn’t ask beforehand, she just simply brought him a mug with an expectation for him to drink it, “It’s either peppermint or ginger.”  
“Uh,” said Rod. She heard the sink turn on for a second, and then shut off, and in a moment, the door of the bathroom swung open. Behind it, he stood wearing a clean, pressed button-up and, most surprisingly, a pair of light-wash jeans. “I suppose I’ll have a cup,” She just stood staring at him for a moment, and he cleared his throat, uncomfortable, “peppermint, if you don’t mind. You know the ginger stuff gives me a headache.”  
Eliza had only ever seen Roderich in jeans before maybe once or twice in the decade and a half they had known one another, he had always claimed the material was too rough and he hated the way they looked, yet there he was. Liz had always known it was because the man couldn’t stand to be so casual, to blend in so well when he could so easily stand out, but she hadn’t ever called him on it. Nevertheless, he didn’t even look out of place, despite every reason why it should have.  
“Woah,” she said, raising an eyebrow at him, “been spending some time at the Old Navy?”  
He checked behind him in the mirror, frowning. “I just thought it might be a nice change.” She couldn’t discount him that, the poor man had been seemingly wearing the same three outfits since high school.  
Eliza shook her head, picking a hair off the shoulder of his shirt, “You don’t look bad, Rod, just almost like a normal person. Where are you going, anyways?” Smooth. She had only been wondering for the past ten minutes.  
Roderich eyed her suspiciously. “I’m going to a party, if you must know.”  
Liz raised her other eyebrow at him. She couldn’t remember the last time Rod had gone to a party.  
Actually, that was a lie, she remembered the last time, only because he had gotten so drunk that he had had to call her to come pick him up, and when she had finally managed to find him, the poor idiot had had a black eye and a busted lip.  
They didn’t really ever discuss that incident, but Liz was often reminded of it. It had been a very strange occurrence to see him so vulnerable and unguarded, such an un-composed mess. Even when they were kids, he had always seemed to be in complete control of his faculties, unless something had otherwise really upset him. She had even seen him drunk before- but never that bad.  
She had helped him up the stairs that night, and he had stumbled so badly he had nearly caused them both to tumble all the way down. Luckily, she had caught him in just the nick of time, and had managed to lug them both into the apartment. She had always been leaner than him, more athletic, and after years of poking fun of him for being a string-bean, she was suddenly very, very thankful for it.  
She had made him get into bed, took off his shoes, left him with an ice-pack and a glass of water on his nightstand. The next morning, he had slept in for hours, and when he got up, Liz had been sitting in the dining room on her third cup of coffee, waiting for him.  
She had handed him a steaming mug, an ibuprofen, and questioned him softly, ‘How’s your head, dear?’  
He had just lopsidedly squinted at her and taken the gift, a peace offering, turning right around to stumble back to his room. She didn’t hear from him for the rest of the day after that, and they never spoke of the incident again. She had never even gotten a thank-you.  
Now, she saw a strange expression flash across his face, like he was remembering just as she was, and she realized she had spent a little too long in thought, “A party….. That’s new,” she wasn’t sure what the point was of concealing her surprise, the man was already frowning at her, “what’s the occasion?”  
“The occasion is me being a delight, Eliza, whom plethoras of people would line up to invite to their parties, thank you,” he was joking, but it was thin: she could tell he was preemptively annoyed.  
“Well, I’m just saying, there’s a reason that it’s not often either of us get invited to parties… neither of us have gone out to one in months, probably,” she crossed her arms over her chest as the kettle behind her started to shriek. She had a very specific goal for this conversation, but judging by the expression on her roommate’s face, she was beginning to doubt whether or not she was going to succeed, “God, I bought a nice pair of shoes a few weeks ago, they were perfect for a party. I was thinking, ‘I’ll never have an opportunity to use these, but they’re so pretty,’ do you remember them, Rod? The nice blue flats? They’d even… match your shirt, a little bit.”  
Rod was still frowning at her, just watching her carry on, but for a second, she thought she saw the corner of his mouth twitch ever-so-slightly. Liz could tell he was annoyed, but also she knew how to tell when the man was trying not to laugh.  
He raised his nose at her as the sound of the kettle got louder and louder over her shoulder, and he blew a long breath through his teeth, “I’m afraid your shoes may be a bit too small for me. You’re being extremely obvious right now, Liza, I have to say. Are you waiting for me to give you permission to go to a party? Aren’t you a grown woman? You ought to get ready now, because I want to arrive in thirty-five minutes and I still have to stop for gas.”  
Liz grinned and didn’t respond, just turned on her heel and hurried away to turn off the hot burner on the stove without touching the kettle, leaving the two mugs she had left for them only minutes before to collect dust for the rest of the evening. Not that either of them really drank the tea she always made anyways.

She only needed about ten minutes to get ready, throwing on a sweater and jeans, the blue flats she had mentioned moments ago, and pinning her hair back away from her face. As she grabbed her purse and her keys from the key-rack, she heard the tinny beep of Roderich’s Volkswagen outside.  
It had been a while since she and Rod had done anything together, especially something that involved other people, or even leaving the house at all. It had even been a while since Liz had even seen the inside of Roderich’s car: it was usually messy, with books or discarded drive-through cups lying about, just general trash he usually didn’t bother to take out, it wasn’t like much of anyone other than him tended to be inside it anyways. But as Liz quickly hopped into his passenger seat, she noticed it was clean; there was no trash, no loose, out-of-place items, barely even any dust. There was an air freshener hanging from his rear-view mirror, leather-scented, and she grinned as she set her purse down in the seat behind her.  
“It’s nice in here,” she commented, as Roderich turned to reverse haphazardly out of the parking spot they were in, before quickly hitting the gas and high-tailing it out of the parking lot in a fashion that was definitely something she did not miss.  
Rod was the worst driver Liz had ever known, but in the moment it somehow made the situation a little comforting. His car may finally be clean, a fact inspired by some unknown factor, but he still nearly sideswiped their apartments’ mailbox block as he exited onto the street.  
He side-eyed her as he drove, hands white on the wheel, likely still attempting to analyze if the compliment had been a hidden insult. It had been, naturally, but Liz was also surprised and impressed. She knew how messy his spaces tended to get, and as she watched the man slide his gaze resignedly back to the road without responding, she wondered what exactly it was that had caused this change.  
It was a minute or so into the ride that the old stereo seemed to whir into motion and connect to Rod’s Bluetooth, where it began to play some sort of instrumental music- Baroque, Liz guessed from what little second-hand knowledge she had acquired from him, but she still couldn’t say for sure.  
She didn’t mind the music, and she wasn’t planning on saying anything about it, but Roderich wrinkled his nose and quickly jabbed at his stereo’s off button on the control panel.  
“I don’t want to hear that shit right now,” he griped, and Liz felt a little put off. Last time she checked, her friend loved classical music. The pretentious swell of strings and piano and other various instruments Liz wouldn’t ever be able to recognize had always seemed to speak with him, and the man was a musician himself, even going so far as majoring as such.  
She looked at him questioningly, and he gave her another sidelong glance before responding to the inquiry unspoken, “I just know it’ll be loud when we get there, is all. I’m trying to savor this quiet moment, so please refrain from therapizing me. I see it in your face.”  
She didn’t respond to that other than with a smile that was more amused than annoyed- it made sense. They both tended to get somewhat overwhelmed in certain situations, he was just keeping a lookout. This was the first purely social outing she had made in weeks, and suddenly she was grateful he had thought to make sure they could both enjoy it.  
Rod kept his eyes on the road for the most part of the way, and a silence relative to the roar of the road fell over the front seat. Liz zoned out, she didn’t remember the last time she had been in the car with him, spending time with him in a fashion that wasn’t a mere symptom of their coexistence. For a second, she wondered how he already seemed to know exactly where they were going, but as the car lurched, the thought was quickly expelled from her mind to make room for others.  
She wasn’t sure how she felt about things now, it made her sad that the two of them had grown apart in such a profound way. She hadn’t previously even been aware that you could grow apart from someone who made you coffee in the mornings and whose laundry you fold along with your own, someone who was so integral to your daily routine.  
They used to joke about their relationship, after the scar of their failed romance had healed and faded, how it was strikingly akin to that of an old married couple. They argued, griped, they took care of each other, albeit minimally, and they spent most of their time together. They joked, harshly, making fun of others, each other, and themselves in equal measure; they knew each other well, better than anyone else.  
At least, they used to, at the moment it struck Liz not for the first time that it seemed that they hadn’t truly spoken in months.  
She remembered all the time of her young life spent sitting in the passenger seat of this car, when he was the most important person in her life, her best friend. Technically, he still was, only because there was no one else, and that made her even sadder.  
Obviously, he was moving on. She couldn’t yet say how, but it was evident in the fact that he seemed to be thriving and she knew nothing about him anymore. It made her feel strange that she couldn’t seem to say the same for herself, she wasn’t thriving, just soldiering on.  
She cleared her throat, regretting not arguing when Rod assumed they were going to take the same car. She had bummer herself out already and nothing had even happened, she suddenly wasn’t sure if she was even up to the party that she had imposed on Rod so strongly by insisting on coming to.  
Now she surely wouldn’t be able to leave early, even if she wanted to- Rod was clearly excited, which was strange to Liz. He was focused on the road, his fingers were drumming on the steering wheel, he was going an estimate of ten miles over the speed limit, he definitely wasn’t taking his time. He was motivated to get there, and to Liz’s judgement, it was something a bit more than the prospect of free alcohol, a passion of his, that was on his mind.  
Before she knew it, she was fully staring at him, mind wandering with possibilities. Maybe he was attending the party to meet someone, although, if that were the case, why would he have bothered to bring Liz along? Yet- it would explain the new jeans, even the tidied state of his car.

Liz cleared her throat, finally having formed a question. Unfortunately, her eyes were suddenly drawn to their surroundings outside the car as they pulled into the long driveway of what seemingly was the house which held the party they were attending, judging from the array of scuffed, practical cars parked outside, the typical mark of a college gathering.  
Roderich came to a full stop in the middle of the street in front of the house, two stories from the looks of it, and fiddled with the doorlock controls as to unlock Liz’s door.  
“Go inside, I’m going to try and find some place to park further out. I won't be long.” It was considerate, and Liz quickly grabbed her purse and unbuckled her seatbelt, forgetting her questions from before.  
“Okay, Roddy, I’ll just.. wait for you inside. I’ll be close-by the front, okay?”  
Her voice sounded a little shrill, she knew, but she was uncertain about the prospects about having to enter the party on her lonesome. “Okay.” She barely heard him affirm as she ducked out of the car and stood, beginning her walk up the driveway to the front door, which stood lazily ajar in careless college-party fashion. An invitation.  
There was music and the sounds of people shouting, laughing, and the shuffling of feet all pouring from the doorway, and when Liz turned behind to see if Rod was still there, perhaps watching her get in, he wasn’t. The spot on the street they both had occupied a moment ago was empty. She was alone.  
A scream sounded from a faceless voice of the party as she pushed in through the door, and she jumped in alarm. Her shoulders still didn't ease down from their rigid spots hunched near her ears when the sound diffused into raucous laughter. It came from a plausibly her age but most likely younger, being thrown carelessly over the shoulder of some guy- a man, more like.  
Both the young couple’s cheeks were flushed, they were laughing good-naturedly when the boy clumsily put the girl back down on her feet again. They erupted into another loud fit of laughter when she stumbled, and Liz had to reassure herself that there was little danger here, besides the general drunkenness of the crowd.  
She kept her eyes peeled for some place to sit- the music was loud, pouring out seemingly from speakers all over. The whole house seemed to shake with it, some song from the radio she had passively heard a thousand times.  
She successfully found a corner to duck into and wait for Rod. Someone passed by and handed her a drink from a trey with no explanation, which she reflexively took. She didn’t drink from it- she wasn’t about to do something as foolish as that, but she still held it as she sat, planted, waiting for her friend.  
Suddenly, it was hard to remember why she had so desperately wanted to accompany him to this party, anyways: she was absolutely terrified thus far. Still, she had to reassure herself that, as soon as Rod showed up from parking the car, he could be her anchor, the one person she knew, and she would start to become more comfortable. As of yet, she knew absolutely no one present, as she studied the crowd of drunken twenty-somethings, all seemingly having the time of their lives.  
She kept scanning the crowd, and again her eyes were drawn to that same couple. They were still horse-playing. This time, although he was sizeable and concealing a muscular build under the light-blue sweater he was wearing, he was grinning endearingly (drunkenly) at the girl he was allowing to nuzzle affectionately into his arm. From the soft look on his face and the nervous way he wrapped an arm around his date, she judged he was likely younger than he looked at fist glance, around the same age of the girl. It occurred to her that these kids didn’t look old enough to drink in the slightest. Thus, Liz ruled the boy himself out as being too much of a threat, and instead worried about the two’s general well-being in regards to the large, towering bookcase they were bumping into periodically.  
The girl was pretty, Liz couldn’t help but notice, she was dark, with an olive skin tone and deep, caramel-colored hair. She was much smaller than him, craning her neck to smirk mischievously up at him. It took Liz a few seconds to notice what was tickling her so about the two- they were such opposites.  
She watched as the girl started to stand up on her tip-toes so as to pet the top of his head. It was a cute gesture, seemingly one meant to be equal parts humorous as it was affectionate, but it apparently caught the young man off guard. Unexpectedly, from what Liz had noticed from their impaired, likely wine-drunk state, he reflexively reared back, bumping his head hard into the bookshelf behind them with a resounding thud.  
A book, something hard-cover and heavy-looking from one of the topmost shelves, already previously teetering on the edge, suddenly loosened by the bump to the base, came tumbling down. It hit the wood floorboards right by the young man’s feet with a thud dwarfing that of the one half a second before. The party around them, all except for the music, quieted.  
The attention of everyone in the surroundings, alerted by the loud noise, was directed at the couple. The young man was cherry-red, and the girl, clinging to his arm for support, was shaking with laughter, hiding her face in his shoulder. She felt pity for them, rivaled with her gratefulness that it wasn’t her under all those eyes. She was going to go up and try to talk to the couple, decidedly, until she heard a voice break out of the tentatively-returning roar of party-noise.  
A flash[ of white, and a figure, familiar, clapped a pale hand on the shoulder of the embarrassed young man Liz had been watching for the past couple of minutes, who now looked a good deal more sober. She only saw his back, but there was something about him she recognized.  
The tense of his shoulders, his gait as he made his way over, and especially the shock of white hair desperately requesting a trimming atop his head, all reminded her of someone she had met just a handful of days ago.  
He seemed to be asking the young man a couple questions, which he was feverishly nodding his affirmations to, before being batted away by the large hand of the young man, now seemingly trying to usher both himself and his date away from the attention of the newcomer, the party, and from the hazardous bookcase.  
Having apparently scared off the couple, which was a shame, Liz had been really gathering up the courage to talk to them, he turned on his heel, seemingly going to make his way back to wherever he came from.  
As he turned in a split second, he caught Liz’s eye from where she had been staring, and seemingly stopped in his tracks. He returned her stare for a split second before his whole face broke out in a shit-eating grin, almost comically mischievous. He made his way over in the blink of an eye, obviously delighted to see her, and she couldn’t stop herself from returning his smile.  
“Hey!” Gilbert shouted over the music, looking vital, boyish, and offering a handshake to the hand not occupied with the drink, “It’s good to see you! I have a bone to pick with you, I was just remembering it!”  
She accepted the handshake, firm, and reflexively took a swig of her drink before she could catch herself. It tasted terrible, but didn’t have the bitter, salty taste that accompanied most date-rape drugs, so she figured it was okay. “Oh?” She responded, a little apprehensive about what on earth he was about to say to her, “I’m sure I don't know what you mean.”  
Her mourning of the interesting spectacle that was the couple she had been watching for the past couple of minutes was quick to fade- watching Gilbert was like a movie, complete with plots and subplots. His facial expressions were complex, his movements were haphazard, hypnotically so, and she could see the gears ticking behind his eyes. He seemed surprisingly sober- a rare feat in this atmosphere, but it may be possible he was smashed and merely very good at hiding it. Either way, she felt secure around him, perhaps for the first time since she left the apartment.  
“You never called!” He accused, and he was right, “I thought we had something, Elizaveta!” He put a hand over his heart, dramatically pantomiming a stab, “I’m wounded!”  
She blushed, not knowing how to reposed to his admission, possibly just a joke, that they may have had something. It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested, in fact, she quite was, the problem had much more to do with how scared she was of the prospect of romance.  
On some base level, she knew it was quite rude of him to bring this up to her, but on the other, she didn't mind it- maybe she hadn’t ruined things for herself after all.  
She shook her head at his theatrics, but she cleared her throat, trying to raise her voice so that she could be heard, “Oh well, I’m sure you have plenty of girls you’ve publicly harassed into calling you, I think you’ll survive somehow, Beilschmidt.” She paused for a second, not wanting him to feel too deterred by her strong response, “But… you’re right, I should have called. We- I’d have to give it a few more tries before I’d say for sure we had something, though. I’ve just-“ she made a vague gesture with her hand, “I’ve been busy. School and everything.”  
He nodded, squinting at her for a second before looking around, “Hey, are you… here alone?”  
Suddenly she felt self-conscious, and she became aware again of the fact that she was supposed to be keeping an eye out for Rod. She gave the crowd around them a once over, and didn’t see any sign of him at all, “Um… well, no, my roommate was supposed to be parking the car but it’s been….” she pulled her phone quickly from her purse to check the time, “Uh, close to an hour.”  
He raised his eyebrows at her a frowned, the grin from before disappearing, “Your roommate… she sounds like a bitch. I didn’t know you could get stood up by your own ride.”  
His words stung a bit, but he was right. She quickly shoved her phone back into her purse, not wanting to be notified if he was trying to text her about whatever tragic accident better be happening to him at the moment, “Yeah he’s… a pill. I think I’m going to just… call an Uber or something. I don't really know anyone here, so… I’m probably going to head out.”  
In response, he shook his head vehemently, “Hey! You know me! Forget your roommate- I was thinking of getting out of here too, you and I can leave together, go do something else. This is my cousin’s party anyways, I wasn’t planning on staying too long. Plus…. I think my brother and his date just left to go partake in unspeakable acts so…” he shrugged, “the night is young, Lizzie, I can drive us wherever.”  
Liz somehow felt that this was moving a little too fast, but she was suddenly full of anger at Rod, who she should have known was going to manage to flake out on her somehow, and she could barely think of any reasons why she should refuse this boy who she barely knew’s offer.  
“I thought….. you legally couldn’t drive,” she said breathlessly, wondering how the evening had turned into this, “also, definitely not if you’ve been drinking.”  
“I got contacts!” He pointed to his eyes, deep red as ever, and laughed at her question, “And I can drive with up to two passengers! So, we’re golden, also I don’t drink! I believe I already told you that,” his grin returned in full, and she felt herself softening, “If you… don’t want to do anything tonight that’s fine, I was thinking we could go to a movie or something, but I could also just take you home. Don’t… waste your money on an Uber. They treat their drivers like ass. And all the drivers are kidnappers.”  
That was the nail in the coffin, she shook her head before replying. “Sure, I can't believe I’m agreeing to this. If we get on the road and you start driving like a maniac I’m going to have to call 911.”  
He laughed, a deep, resounding cackle, and he clapped an arm over her shoulders like they were old friends, jostling the drink in her hands onto the pretty wood flooring. Gilbert’s cousin’s pretty wood flooring. “Why, you don’t trust me?”  
She looked up at him as he started to lead her away from her little corner, steadily through the crowd, “Well, I’m just not sure yet.” She thought for a moment, quickly setting her drink down on a nearby coffee table as they exited together through the back door, “Somehow, I’m beginning to think I do.”


End file.
